Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Researchers Use Data from Traffic App to Identify Safety Issues and High Frequency Accident Locations

-- Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers reveal that data culled from geosocial networks like the GPS traffic app Waze can help prevent traffic incidents with better deployment of police resources at the most accident prone areas. 

“Only now are we beginning to discover the potential in the huge amount of data collected daily,” explains BGU researcher and Ph.D. student Michael Fire. “Studies of this kind, which monitor events such as traffic accidents over time, can help the police identify dangerous sections of roads in real time, or alternatively, locations where few police are needed.” 

The paper, “Data Mining Opportunities in Geosocial Networks for Improving Road Safety,” was presented at the IEEE 27th Convention of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in Israel. Waze records location data and enables users to upload and share comments on any detail, including traffic alerts, accidents or police presence. According to its Web site, Waze has 30 million worldwide users and describes itself as “a community-based traffic and navigation app whose users share real-time traffic and road info, saving time and gas money.”

Using Waze data and Google Earth, the BGU researchers determined that three-quarters (75 percent) of the locations in Israel with the highest number of accidents were intersections.  They then analyzed references to a police presence to determine if the police were present at the spots that had the worst traffic accidents.

“There were numerous instances where the police were manning quieter intersections, while busier intersections went unmonitored,” Fire explains.  “According to the data, police response time varied from 20 minutes to 40 minutes in some situations.”  

Using Waze, data from May and June 2012 was collected and analyzed on accident reports, police presence, traffic jams, and speed traps.  BGU researchers identified 579 different locations in Israel that had at least five reoccurring accidents during this time where 5,156 reported accidents occurred.  Police were reported at least 15 times at more than 3,500 locations. 

American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (AABGU) plays a vital role in sustaining David Ben-Gurion's vision, creating a world-class institution of education and research in the Israeli desert, nurturing the Negev community and sharing the University's expertise locally and around the globe. With some 20,000 students on campuses in Beer-Sheva, Sede Boqer and Eilat in Israel’s southern desert, BGU is a university with a conscience, where the highest academic standards are integrated with community involvement, committed to sustainable development of the Negev.  AABGU is headquartered in Manhattan and has nine regional offices throughout the U.S. For more information, please visit www.aabgu.org.

For further information visit: http://www10.giscafe.com/nbc/articles/view_article.php?section=CorpNews&articleid=1149480&printerfriendly=1

Top Geospatial Predictions for 2013

On this first day of the Winter Solstice, it is a time of reflection and quiet, noticing how remarkable it is that the planets are all aligned with the sun. It is also a good time to look at what we might find important geospatial topics for 2013.

1. Climate Change. Although climate change has been around for quite some time, it is a problem that is not going away and in fact showing itself in more urgent ways. The change in climate affects our weather, seas, coastlines, food supplies, natural resources, health, housing, to name a few areas of survival. The increase in natural disasters can be attributed in large part due to climate change. As federal and global agencies spend more funding on disaster recovery and restoration, they will have to pay attention to the longer-range outlook of recovering the global ecology.

The most popular article on GISCafe Today this past year was the following article:

Climage Change Affects Coastlines at Greater Rate than other Places on the Planet

2. Satellite imagery. In July, Herndon-based GeoEye announced plans to combine with competitor DigitalGlobe in a deal worth $900 million, following the federal government’s move to reduce funding for their most lucrative contract. Prior to this GeoEye had tried a hostile takeover of DigitalGlobe, which the Denver-based company refused. This merger was finalized in November.

The companies have been direct competitors for many years, offering photo capture and other imagery from satellites that orbit the Earth that they then sell them to federal agencies, the military and others who benefit from a bird’s-eye view of the planet. It is hoped that the merger will save both companies money in the production of their satellites.

This merger signals a shift, not only in the one-stop shopping offering of one American satellite imagery for all, but also makes a telling statement about the federal government’s cuts in geospatial spending. At this point the extent of the cuts is unknown nor do we know what aspects of the industry will be affected.

3. Cloud. The cloud appears to be here to stay, and although it is somewhat old news, it is new news in the way it will be deployed going forward. According to Esri president Jack Dangermond, “With the dawning of the cloud web world pattern for GIS, we’re seeing how we can share this knowledge and create better understanding. GIS drives understanding.” More Autodesk products are being moved to the cloud to facilitate ease in sharing and ability to store more data. Autodesk CEO Carl Bass says,  “Cloud architecture is the biggest thing to happen to computing since the PC.”

4. Geospatial in Infrastructure. In response to the critical need for infrastructure repair and retrofit in the U.S., geospatial visualization, geolocation and integration has found its way into the world of architecture and construction. There is $53 billion worth of infrastructure that must be repaired or replaced in the U.S. Globally, there is a greater investment in infrastructure. Creating an intelligent infrastructure requires the use of geospatial, for site planning, indoor mapping, weather and soil analysis and many other uses. This increases the urgency for geospatial in the creation of new cities or revamping existing ones.

The industry area that has enjoyed a huge uptake in recent years is Civil. Both Autodesk and Bentley Systems have 3D civil engineering products that are fully integrated with geospatial solutions that can be used with Esri software. The latest trend according to IMAGINiT, an Autodesk consultancy, is that the customer base that was reluctant to adopt Civil 3D now must have it. GIS customers are gravitating toward their Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler.

“Everything is Geospatial” – Report from Autodesk University 2012

Bentley Geospatial and Utilities Update

5. Mobile.  Although mobile is not new, it is changing dramatically. More tablet devices are being used in the developed world, bringing more information to more people, and this usage is extending to the developing world. Mobile devices in developing countries are used for banking and healthcare and are in general used for more tasks. This is a market to tap into, making GIS available to more people who might otherwise not have access to it, and thereby giving them a voice which can then influence land ownership, health, analysis of soils and weather, all topics that can make a profound difference to their lives.

6. Security. Teresa Payton, Former White House CIO, Cybersecurity Authority and Identity Theft Expert, made some surprising announcements about security:“51% of CIOS cite security as their greatest concern regarding current or planned moves to cloud computing.”“According to the FBI, there are two types of companies right now. Those that have been hacked and those that don’t realize they’ve been hacked.”

One thing she said concerns CIOs and CEOs is intellectual property theft. She gave an example: a big company was hacked of their intellectual property. They had hired some kids from China for the summer, and when they left, so did 20 years of research. “Whoever stole it probably knows what to do with it,” Payton said. “If they had had a vendor partner this might not have been so devastating.”

“I believe with the right best practices and the right conversations with your vendor, you can actually be safer in the cloud.”Most outsourcing contracts fail to cover security effectively, according to Gartner.

By 2013 the enterprise will turn to hybrid clouds for services, and will look to private clouds for B2B interaction management and governance strategies. By 2014 the cloud will be the primary operating model for enterprise IT organizations. By 2015 economies of scale and cloud security assurances will drive more enterprises to adopt cloud services. Personal computers and devices will get replaced more and more by the cloud.

“There’s a new role emerging – global executive of cloud services,” said Peyton. Peyton recommended getting a pre-nup agreement for signing with a cloud services provider. If they go bankrupt or you split up, how are your digital assets protected? Right now the courts are confused about data when it is the topic of a subpoena. “If your data had been still in house when it was stolen, you have obligations to your clients to protect their data,” said Peyton. “You need to make sure there is clarity about whose data it is.”

For further information visit: http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2012/12/31/top-geospatial-predictions-for-2012-2/

NTU's ground-breaking study warns of more great quakes in the Himalayas

Massive earthquakes are not unknown in the Himalayas, as quakes in 1897, 1905, 1934 and 1950 all had magnitudes between 7.8 and 8.9, each causing tremendous damage. But they were previously thought not to have broken the earth's surface - classified as blind quakes - which are much more difficult to track. 

A research team led by scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has discovered that massive earthquakes in the range of 8 to 8.5 magnitudes on the Richter scale have left clear ground scars in the central Himalayas.

This ground-breaking discovery has huge implications for the area along the front of the Himalayan Mountains, given that the region has a population density similar to that of New York City.NTU Professor Paul Tapponnier, who is recognised as a leading scientist in the field of neotectonics, said that the existence of such devastating quakes in the past means that quakes of the same magnitude could happen again in the region in future, especially in areas which have yet to have their surface broken by a temblor.

Published recently in Nature Geosciences, a prestigious scientific journal, the study by NTU's Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS) and colleagues in Nepal and France showed that in 1255 and 1934, two great earthquakes ruptured the surface of the earth in the Himalayas. This runs contrary to what scientists have previously thought.

Massive earthquakes are not unknown in the Himalayas, as quakes in 1897, 1905, 1934 and 1950 all had magnitudes between 7.8 and 8.9, each causing tremendous damage. But they were previously thought not to have broken the earth's surface - classified as blind quakes - which are much more difficult to track. However, Prof Tapponnier said that by combining new high resolution imagery and state of the art dating techniques, they could show that the 1934 earthquake did indeed rupture the surface, breaking the ground over a length of more than 150 kilometres, essentially south of the part of the range that harbours Mt Everest. This break formed along the main fault in Nepal that currently marks the boundary between the Indian and Asian tectonic plates - also known as the Main Frontal Thrust (MFT) fault.

Using radiocarbon dating of offset river sediments and collapsed hill-slope deposits, the research team managed to separate several episodes of tectonic movement on this major fault and pin the dates of the two quakes, about 7 centuries apart.

"The significance of this finding is that earthquakes of magnitude 8 to 8.5 may return at most twice per millennium on this stretch of the fault, which allows for a better assessment of the risk they pose to the surrounding communities," said Prof Tapponnier.Prof Tapponnier warns that the long interval between the two recently discovered earthquake ruptures does not mean people should be complacent, thinking that there is still time before the next major earthquake happens in the region.

"This does not imply that the next mega-earthquake in the Himalayas will occur many centuries from now because we still do not know enough about adjacent segments of the MFT Mega-thrust," Prof Tapponier explains."But it does suggest that areas west or east of the 1934 Nepal ground rupture are now at greater risk of a major earthquake, since there are little or no records of when last earth shattering temblor happened in those two areas."The next step for Prof Tapponnier and his EOS scientists is to uncover the full extent of such fault ruptures, which will then allow them to build a more comprehensive model of earthquake hazard along the Himalayan front.

About the NTU's Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS)

EOS is a premier research institute at NTU which conducts fundamental research on earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunami and climate change in and around Southeast Asia, towards safer and more sustainable societies.

For further information visit: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/NTUs_ground_breaking_study_warns_of_more_great_quakes_in_the_Himalayas_999.html

An Image Gallery Gift from NASA's Swift

The Crab Nebula is the wreckage of an exploded star, or supernova, observed in the year 1054. The expanding cloud of gas is located 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. This composite of three Swift UVOT ultraviolet images highlights the luminous hot gas in the supernova remnant. The image is constructed from exposures using these filters: uvw1, centered at 2,600 angstroms (shown as red); uvm2, centered at 2,246 angstroms (green); and uvw2, centered at 1,928 angstroms (blue). Credit: NASA/Swift/E. Hoversten, PSU. For a larger version of this image please go here. 

Of the three telescopes carried by NASA's Swift satellite, only one captures cosmic light at energies similar to those seen by the human eye. Although small by the standards of ground-based observatories, Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) plays a critical role in rapidly pinpointing the locations of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), the brightest explosions in the cosmos.

But as the proxy to the human eye aboard Swift, the UVOT takes some amazing pictures. The Swift team is celebrating eight years of UVOT operations by collecting more than 100 of the instrument's best snapshots in a web-based photo gallery. The images also can be viewed with the free Swift Explorer Mission iPhone app developed by the Swift Mission Operations Center (MOC), which is located in State College, Pa., and operated by Penn State.

Swift has detected an average of about 90 GRBs a year since its launch in 2004. "When we aren't studying GRBs, we use the satellite's unique capabilities to engage in other scientific investigations, some of which produce beautiful images from the UVOT that we're delighted to be able to share with the public," said Michael Siegel, the lead scientist on the UVOT and a research associate in astronomy and astrophysics at the MOC.

The targets range from comets and star clusters to supernova remnants, nearby galaxies and active galaxies powered by super massive black holes."One of our more challenging projects in the past was completing an ultraviolet mosaic of M31, the famous Andromeda galaxy," said Stefan Immler, a member of the Swift team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Because the galaxy is so much larger than the UVOT field of view, we had to take dozens of pictures and blend them together to show the whole object."

An ongoing mosaic project targets the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two small satellite galaxies orbiting our own, and makes the Andromeda effort look like child's play. Although the galaxies are much smaller than M31, they are both much closer to us and extend over much larger areas of the sky. The task involves acquiring and aligning hundreds of images and is far from complete.

With the UVOT's wavelength range of 1,700 to 6,000 angstroms, Swift remains one of few missions that study ultraviolet light, much of which is blocked by Earth's atmosphere. The 6.5-foot-long (2 meter) UVOT is centered on an 11.8-inch (30 cm) primary mirror. Designed and built by the Mullard Space Science Laboratory in Surrey, England, the telescope module includes the primary and secondary mirrors, an external baffle to reduce scattered light, two redundant detectors - only one has been used to date - and a power supply.

Because most ultraviolet light never reaches the ground, Swift's UVOT provides a unique perspective on the cosmos. For example, it can measure the amount of water produced in passing comets by detecting the ultraviolet emission of hydroxyl (OH), one of the molecular fragments created when ultraviolet sunlight breaks up water molecules.

Other types of UVOT science include exploring emissions from the centers of active galaxies, studying regions undergoing star formation, and identifying some of the rarest and most exotic stars known. Toward the end of its energy-producing life, a star like the sun will blow away its outer layers as its core transforms into a compact, Earth-sized remnant known as a white dwarf.

This chapter of stellar evolution, known to astronomers as the post-asymptotic giant branch phase, lasts only about 100,000 years - just an eye-blink in comparison to the star's total lifetime. To better understand the process, astronomers need to study large numbers of these unusual stars."The UVOT's capabilities give us a great tool for surveying stellar populations and cataloguing rare types of ultraviolet-bright stars," Siegel explained.

One of the first targets for the stellar survey was the giant cluster Omega Centauri, which hosts millions of stars and may be the remains of a small galaxy. Thanks to Swift's UVOT, astronomers at Goddard and Penn State have catalogued hundreds of rare stellar types in the cluster and are now comparing their properties and numbers to predictions from theoretical models describing how stars evolve.

For further information visit: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/An_Image_Gallery_Gift_from_NASAs_Swift_999.html

An Image Gallery Gift from NASA's Swift

The Crab Nebula is the wreckage of an exploded star, or supernova, observed in the year 1054. The expanding cloud of gas is located 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. This composite of three Swift UVOT ultraviolet images highlights the luminous hot gas in the supernova remnant. The image is constructed from exposures using these filters: uvw1, centered at 2,600 angstroms (shown as red); uvm2, centered at 2,246 angstroms (green); and uvw2, centered at 1,928 angstroms (blue). Credit: NASA/Swift/E. Hoversten, PSU. For a larger version of this image please go here. 

Of the three telescopes carried by NASA's Swift satellite, only one captures cosmic light at energies similar to those seen by the human eye. Although small by the standards of ground-based observatories, Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) plays a critical role in rapidly pinpointing the locations of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), the brightest explosions in the cosmos.

But as the proxy to the human eye aboard Swift, the UVOT takes some amazing pictures. The Swift team is celebrating eight years of UVOT operations by collecting more than 100 of the instrument's best snapshots in a web-based photo gallery. The images also can be viewed with the free Swift Explorer Mission iPhone app developed by the Swift Mission Operations Center (MOC), which is located in State College, Pa., and operated by Penn State.

Swift has detected an average of about 90 GRBs a year since its launch in 2004. "When we aren't studying GRBs, we use the satellite's unique capabilities to engage in other scientific investigations, some of which produce beautiful images from the UVOT that we're delighted to be able to share with the public," said Michael Siegel, the lead scientist on the UVOT and a research associate in astronomy and astrophysics at the MOC.

The targets range from comets and star clusters to supernova remnants, nearby galaxies and active galaxies powered by super massive black holes."One of our more challenging projects in the past was completing an ultraviolet mosaic of M31, the famous Andromeda galaxy," said Stefan Immler, a member of the Swift team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Because the galaxy is so much larger than the UVOT field of view, we had to take dozens of pictures and blend them together to show the whole object."

An ongoing mosaic project targets the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two small satellite galaxies orbiting our own, and makes the Andromeda effort look like child's play. Although the galaxies are much smaller than M31, they are both much closer to us and extend over much larger areas of the sky. The task involves acquiring and aligning hundreds of images and is far from complete.

With the UVOT's wavelength range of 1,700 to 6,000 angstroms, Swift remains one of few missions that study ultraviolet light, much of which is blocked by Earth's atmosphere. The 6.5-foot-long (2 meter) UVOT is centered on an 11.8-inch (30 cm) primary mirror. Designed and built by the Mullard Space Science Laboratory in Surrey, England, the telescope module includes the primary and secondary mirrors, an external baffle to reduce scattered light, two redundant detectors - only one has been used to date - and a power supply.

Because most ultraviolet light never reaches the ground, Swift's UVOT provides a unique perspective on the cosmos. For example, it can measure the amount of water produced in passing comets by detecting the ultraviolet emission of hydroxyl (OH), one of the molecular fragments created when ultraviolet sunlight breaks up water molecules.

Other types of UVOT science include exploring emissions from the centers of active galaxies, studying regions undergoing star formation, and identifying some of the rarest and most exotic stars known. Toward the end of its energy-producing life, a star like the sun will blow away its outer layers as its core transforms into a compact, Earth-sized remnant known as a white dwarf.

This chapter of stellar evolution, known to astronomers as the post-asymptotic giant branch phase, lasts only about 100,000 years - just an eye-blink in comparison to the star's total lifetime. To better understand the process, astronomers need to study large numbers of these unusual stars."The UVOT's capabilities give us a great tool for surveying stellar populations and cataloguing rare types of ultraviolet-bright stars," Siegel explained.

One of the first targets for the stellar survey was the giant cluster Omega Centauri, which hosts millions of stars and may be the remains of a small galaxy. Thanks to Swift's UVOT, astronomers at Goddard and Penn State have catalogued hundreds of rare stellar types in the cluster and are now comparing their properties and numbers to predictions from theoretical models describing how stars evolve.

For further information visit: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/An_Image_Gallery_Gift_from_NASAs_Swift_999.html

NASA probes crash into the moon

Two NASA probes crashed into the moon on Monday after spending months gathering data by orbiting miles above the lunar surface, the US space agency said. The site where the tiny probes, dubbed Ebb and Flow, crashed will be named after astronaut Sally Ride, the first American woman in space.

Ride, who died earlier this year, had led the GRAIL mission's MoonKam project for students from around the world to choose targets for the probes' cameras."Sally was all about getting the job done, whether it be in exploring space, inspiring the next generation, or helping make the GRAIL mission the resounding success it is today," GRAIL principal investigator Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge said in a statement.

"As we complete our lunar mission, we are proud we can honor Sally Ride's contributions by naming this corner of the moon after her." Ebb and Flow slammed into the lunar surface as planned at 22:28 GMT and 22:29 GMT at a whopping 3,760 miles per hour (1.7 kilometers per second). The Sally K. Ride Impact Site is on the southern surface of a mountain near a crater named Goldschmidt.

There was no image of the crash because the area was in the dark at the time, NASA said. The probes were destroyed after running low on fuel and sinking too low in orbit to conduct any more missions, the space agency said. During their work life the probes took more than 115,000 images of the lunar surface, generating the highest resolution gravity map ever gathered from a celestial body.

The map will help provide a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed and evolved, according to scientists."We will miss our lunar twins, but the scientists tell me it will take years to analyze all the great data they got, and that is why we came to the moon in the first place," said GRAIL project manager David Lehman of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"So long, Ebb and Flow, and we thank you."Launched in September 2011, Ebb and Flow had been orbiting the moon since January 1. At some points, they were flying just a few miles above the moon's tallest mountains.

Ebb and Flow fired their main engines until the tanks were empty, allowing NASA to determine precisely how much fuel is left and help improve predictions of fuel needs for future missions.

The $500 million GRAIL mission was the 110th moon exploration mission. Those missions include the six manned Apollo flights from 1969 to 1972 that saw 12 Americans land on the lunar surface.

For further information visit: http://www.moondaily.com/reports/NASA_probes_crash_into_the_moon_999.html

Argentine Land Registry Launches Territorial Information System

The Dirección General del Catastro Territorial (General Directorate of Cadastre Land [DGCT]) of the Province of Formosa, Argentina, is responsible for managing, maintaining, and updating the geographic information and legal valuation of approximately 160,000 parcels that make up the province, contributing to traffic safety, secure land tenure, land-use planning, and urban financing through property taxes. To continue to fulfill these responsibilities, it was necessary to have reliable, high-quality land information that could be accessed easily and efficiently.

The territorial information system's management module links to digital documents, such as these scanned cadastral surveys and the legal document that validates the transaction.

Officials implemented a new GIS to address these needs and realize their vision of having a digital cadastre that is open and allows citizens easy access to the provincial land registry information. This project involved new technological advances within the provincial administration.
http://www.esri.com/news/arcnews/fall12articles/argentine-land-registry-launches-territorial-information-system.html